A/N : This story ahs been translated from french by the wonderfull and very talented Itdoesringabell! All my thanks to her for her great work on this story!
This is my second story based on Gossip Girl, and again it's Dan's point of view of Blair !
I actually find myself fascinated by Dan's underrated fictional potential in this show. I loved the idea of Dan and Blair becoming friends, and even though the turn their relationship took seemed quite out of character and quite ridiculous, I can very well imagine Dan living a one-sided love towards Blair. She represents everything that fascinates him, even though he refused to admit it…Now, enough with my ramblings.
In this story, I imagined that Dan and Blair never dated. It takes over from when they were really close, after her miscarriage, but not in love. Dan never confessed his feelings to her because he knew she couldn't accept not return them. Blair married Chuck, Dan stayed single and never had a serious relationship and now quite old, he is sort of a loner.
Have a good reading, and don't forget to tell me what you thought about it!
Disclaimer : Of course, neither Gossip Girl nor its characters belong to me. I'll put them back into their box when I'm done playing with them. And I happily leave their custody to their original owners.
Daniel Humphrey was finishing a lecture at Yale University. Most of the students attending were trying their best to fan away with their hands the excruciating heat of an end of June day.
It was his last lecture of a two months long cycle he had started in Harvard. In spite of his years of experience, Dan still had a hard time coming to terms with his being one of the most renown writers of the Unites States, getting along with this status the rare privilege of being appreciated by the critics and the grand public.
Utterly common questions were being thrown at him.
"Mr. Humphrey, where do you get your inspiration?"
"Mr. Humphrey, how exactly do you process to the writing?"
"Mr. Humphrey, are you still single?" –that one was asked by the unavoidable twenty two year old female student, with the short skirt and the top inappropriately revealing for the event.
One student with glasses, a three hundred dollars haircut and custom-tailored clothes –future journalist? –finally got hold of the microphone.
"Mr. Humphrey, is it true that you are planning on writing the biography of the ex-princess of Monaco, most known CEO of New York and friend of yours, Blair Waldorf?"
Definitely a future journalist.
Daniel could not hold back his snort "May I ask who gave you such information, mister…?"
"Swift, Edward Swift, Mr. Humphrey."
"Well, Mr. Swift, I would double check my sources if I were you. I have no intention of writing Mrs Waldorf's biography."
Afterwards, Dan was walking hastily towards the arcades under the blinding sun of the afternoon, to meet with his editor and his agent who had sought the relief of the shadows. Glad to get a hold of them both, he asked the question that has been reeling in his mind ever since the end of his lecture.
"Have I been proposed to write Blair's biography?"
"Blair?" Diana seemed genuinely lost, which meant that either she was an outstanding liar, either it was just an unfounded rumor, just like he thought.
"Blair Waldorf!"
Diana turned to Richard Mayes who shrugged nonchalantly, uninterested.
"No, Dan, nobody's made us such an offer"
"Right, good. I just wanted to check"
"Wait, wait, who told you about that? Did she ask for a biography?"
Before Dan could even give an answer, Diana was furiously typing on her smartphone, probably searching on the internet for information about a hypothetical biography of the most famous Upper East Sider.
Judging by her sighs, groans and furrowed brows, Diana was not finding what she was looking for. After a little enraged mumbling, she looked up from her screen to face the two men again "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to make a few calls. Go on without me, I'll catch you later"
Then she went off with a quick step to the nearest building. With a shrug, Dan followed the security team who led him to the new library, inaugurated in his honor.
Everything happened really fast after that. The ceremony, the dean's speech, the courteous display of gratitude from Dan, the reunion with the professors and modern literature Ph. D students, the Gala and the ride in a limousine back to the hotel.
It was only once he was alone in his suite –far too expensive for one night, but Dan had not put on any protest, since it was on the publishing house – that he finally gathered his thoughts and was brought back to the question asked by the arrogant future journalist.
Being a famous author, Dan had faced all kinds of criticism of his work, and almost as much biographies pretending to reveal America's favorite author's true face.
He was actually surprised by how many people, rather intelligent, had engendered so many ludicrous theories about his writing. None of them had even gotten close to the truth. It had actually been his biggest fear, that someone could read between the lines and unravel what he had struggled so hard to dissimulate. Fortunately, that had never happened, and no one had ever seen anything. Except Chuck, of course, but Chuck had always been a tad too perceptive for his own good. Besides, his own relationship with Blair had given him some kind of unusual radar for everything dealing with romantic relationship, and heartbreaks. Who would have guessed that Chuck Bass would once become an expert in human relations?
Blair. Blair had guessed, for a long time. Once, when they were having dinner, Dan had brought up what was to him this insolvable paradox. Blair had smiled and replied that Chuck had always been quite a human mind expert. Seeing on Dan's face how dubious he felt, she explained herself.
"I think Chuck has always known how to analyze people. When we were kids, he was already able to obtain whatever he wanted from our nannies; he always knew what to do. It's only with people he loves, that he finds himself disoriented."
The conversation had continued until late in the night, but Dan could not really recall its conclusion anymore. He had been more fascinated by the way the crude lighting of the restaurant made her skin paler than usual, or how her laugh rang against the crystal of the glasses, in the badly dim ambiance of the so chic restaurant.
In spite of himself, Dan got out of the memory. Thinking back to it would not do any good, it would only supply the uneasiness he was dragging with him.
He struggled to get up from the comfortable depth of the couch where he had been so well settled, and went to pour himself a glass of bourbon from the mini-bar. A bad habit, due to the too numerous galas, due to the lonely nights spent in his New York apartment, and due to the myth of the misunderstood artist that he had always dreamed of embodying. Instead, he had gotten the fame, the photographs, the recognition of his peers and the fortune. He was not sure if it should make him laugh or cry. After all, was it really allowed to complain about not being a starved artist?
However, the romantic dream that had marked his teenage years had been the one of the misunderstood genius, the tortured artist in constant struggle with the rest of the world. Reality had shattered this image. Everyone was congratulating him for his achievement, and he should have been happy about that. But deep down, he kept the regret of a fantasized ideal that he had never had a single taste of.
Still, Dan was comforted by the certitude that nobody had indeed ever understood him. No one –or almost –really knew what actually imprisoned his novels, no one had managed to get out of them their fundamental essence: Blair.
He had always been surprised, and amused, by the fact that no connection was ever made. He had not realized it himself at first; what had started as a subconscious colloquialism had become afterwards a highly elaborated literary process.
He had his own manifest obsession, and still, no one but Chuck had ever pointed it out to him. Back then, they were both wandering with their hearts broken by an unaware princess. Chuck had been the only one to perceive what should have been so evident to the others; but all of them had been blinded by their prejudices and their own intangible perceptions of all things on earth. Only the one who had defied all the rules of social behavior of his peers could imagine another one transgressing them again.
At that time, Chuck had gone as far as offering him support, and a mutual respect –if not friendship –was born between them. This sketch of a relationship almost broke years later.
A few hours from the wedding, standing in his best man suit, Dan had finally accepted.
"…I know that you still love her, that you'll probably still love her" Chuck had told him "I understand, because Blair is that kind of person that requires an unalterable devotion; she doesn't even realize it, she doesn't understand the kind of sickened fascination she provokes. I know what your novels are about, and I know why you write them. But this has to remain in the world of fiction, Dan. We both know it. Blair needs you, you are vital to her. You bring in her life something that she had been missing. I don't pretend that it makes me happy, and I wouldn't dare say that I understand, but I have to accept it, because I chose to love her in all absolute, without any reserve. She doesn't even understand, you know? She spends hours reading your novels again and again, going into ecstasies over them, and she is yet unable to see what should be piercing her eyes."
"Blair has always been really good at denial over what could hurt her" Dan had replied "I think it's one of her biggest strengths, and one of her most dangerous weaknesses. I won't say a word, don't worry. My writing needs her too much"
He was not aware of it at the time, but that day, Daniel Humphrey had renounced to life, and ceded to fantasy. He was, from that moment on, a character of legend; the perfect lover, but forever unhappy, sentenced to a pure, everlasting, one-sided love. In the following years, Dan became one of the close ones to the Waldorf-Bass family. And even though the matter had never come up again, Chuck had understood that Dan had preferred the idealistic fiction over the roughness of reality, and that the writer would never be a threat to his wife's happiness.
That day, Dan had become what he had always wanted to be; a novel character, the misfortunate hero of the tragedy he had written for himself.
His glass empty, the famous Daniel Humphrey resigned to get to bed. Putting his head on the pillow, he thought a last time about the future journalist's question…He allowed himself to snort.
A Blair Waldorf biography? How could those idiots not see that he had already written it? How could have no one understood that she was each of his characters, being way too complex to occupy just a novel, and just a single role? Would anybody ever understand that until his last word, Dan Humphrey would be writing Blair Waldorf's biography?